This past week, Q-line asked:
As the retirement date for current City Manager Lamont Ewell approaches, city officials have begun looking for his replacement. What qualities should the new city manager possess?
Here are your responses:
“The new city manger should be experienced, intelligent, empathetic to the needs and wants of the citizens, pass an irreproachable background check and work well with all agencies of this city’s government.”
“He should have a real sincere interest — in other words give a damn — about this community. And if need be, how about setting up a phone line of a place where residents can actually contact his office and make comments and he should look into the stuff that people are really upset about like the homeless problem and all this stuff. It’s wonderful to write an article in the paper, but we need to know that the right people in office within the city are getting this information.”
“I find it interesting to note that there is a great deal of departing of civil servants going on. To go back a ways, former Chief of Police James Butts departed Inglewood, Santa Monica and now the L.A. Airport police department. We most recently lost the chairman of Santa Monica’s Rent Control Board and now our city manager. Some of this departing has to do with our streets getting tougher and on every level of government no one any longer seems to mind the law. Santa Monica is a city that has some of the richest and some of the poorest people in the nation. The new city manger should subscribe to integrity in filling the obligations of his office.”
“I think the qualities the new city manager should possess that the last one didn’t — Lamont Ewell — is to listen more to the people rather than big money interests. He didn’t pay any attention to the fact that over 10,000 people wrote in to save the ficus trees on Second and Fourth streets, and he did not listen, did not even sit down with any of the Treesavers when they asked repeatedly for meetings with him. Yes, someone who’s more for the people rather than corporations and big money.”
“The tweed ring or our Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights-run city hired the last guy from the most crooked town in California. The new manager should preferably be born and raised in Santa Monica so they might actually care something about our town. Also, they should have absolutely no ties to any local political organizations, especially Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights.”
“Whoever they get for city manger should only have one thing: the name of a good psychiatrist, because after dealing with those idiots on the City Council he’s going to need it.”
“I think the most important quality that the new city manager could posses is that the new city manger hates declawing of cats and wants it to be illegal in Santa Monica.”
“Don’t hire anyone with a criminal record or who is under investigation. Don’t hire anyone from the East Coast, since they don’t have a clue. Don’t hire anyone from San Diego city or county, past or present official. Don’t hire anyone who will simply rubber-stamp the socialist desires of our City Council. And definitely do not hire anyone who attended Harvard. Instead, hire someone who has common sense, a good education and a verifiable record of honesty and hard work. And last but not least, hire someone who believes the city, as well as individuals, have to live within their means. In other words, a budget minded individual.”
“First, the City Council needs to stop its program of affirmative and gender action hires. Look for a person from Santa Monica who grew up here, a person who remembers Santa Monica before the Stalinists took over, who sees how ugly we’ve become and where we should not be in the future. We need a person of uncompromising individuality who owes nothing to any group, a person of not only intelligence but of the wisdom to see where we should be. More isn’t necessarily better. The problem is how do you judge a person with these qualities when the rouges in city leadership have no idea of what they are.”
